


Eurydice

by Thistlerose



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Gen, Post-Canon, Redemption
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-13
Updated: 2011-01-13
Packaged: 2017-10-14 17:41:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/151802
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thistlerose/pseuds/Thistlerose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bad things happen to the people who try to look out for Faith.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Eurydice

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Ten Years of Buffy challenge on LJ. My prompt was Faith's reaction when she learns that Angel went to fight the Circle of the Black Thorn without her, so there are spoilers for the ends of both series. Many thanks to R_becca for beta reading.

She can't talk to Buffy. They'll only end up fighting. Faith wants to bruise her knuckles against someone's face, but not B's. Fighting can be cathartic, often is, but not this time. Faith has always lacked foresight, but she can see that much.

Can't talk to Robin, either. He'll try to soothe her, and Faith doesn't need soothing. She'll hurt him if they end up screwing. Not intentionally. She's learned (well, learning) not to strike when someone lets his guard down, but the way she's feeling right now, she just can't see the line between fucking and fighting.

It's all a blur, every line, every sight and sound. She walks down the street, hears the click-click of heels, and sometimes it's her, sometimes it's the people walking behind her – the ones who are never there when she whirls to face them. Nadia, her first Watcher, whom she couldn't save. Gwendolyn Post, who used her. Allan Finch, her victim. Mayor Wilkins – pretty fucking psychotic in retrospect, but still more of a dad to her than the guy who knocked up her mom. Wesley, who helped her despite what she did to him.

Angel.

Black smoke seems to fill her eyes when she tries to think about him, and she can hear the roar of blood in her ears. He's somewhere in that blackness and maybe she could find him if she fumbled and reached. But maybe she'd find something that isn't him. There are all kinds of demons in her head, some she knows she can take if she has to fight them again, others she's not too sure about.

She doesn't trust herself. She's been in this state before, when she woke from her coma and found the Mayor dead, and Miss Buffy, Miss Perfect, Miss Always Righteous and Good in the arms of her living GI Joe. Her scar hissed and sizzled like a snake, like a live wire, like it's doing now, and she couldn't see or hear a thing. All she could do was strike and hurt.

Angel should've called for her.

She wastes the first vamp who crosses her path. Brushes the dust off the toes of her boots. Walks on.

Another one, in an alley, getting ready to jump some kids coming out of a club. Smoke and dust, on her lips, her eyelashes, her hair.

Where does all the dust go?

She never thought about it before. Does it dissolve, get washed away in the rain? Does it go up into the air, do we breathe it in, does it cling to things, engrain itself in things? All the dust of all the vampires ever slain. Kakistos. Angel.

Her scar burns. She bites back a cry. Someone else is coming. Another vampire.

No, Xander.

She freezes, stake-arm bent back, teeth bared.

"Good reflexes," he says mildly.

Faith lowers her arm. "Not you. Fuck it, not you."

"Gee," Xander says, "that's just the sort of thing a guy likes to hear."

"Sorry," she mutters. "You don't want to be around me right now."

He makes that annoying gesture, forefingers and thumbs up, the other fingers curled over his palms. "Actually, I hardly _ever_ want to be around you. _But_ , here I am."

"Buffy sent you."

He shakes his head.

" _Someone_ sent you. Giles. Robin."

"Believe it or not, my being here at this very moment, has everything to do with a Starbucks caramel machiatto and nothing to do with you."

She doesn't believe him. She cocks her head and eyes him warily.

"And can I just say," Xander continues blithely, "how nice it is to be in a place where highly caffeinated, highly sugared drinks are available at all hours? True, there's the rain and the incomprehensible accents. But I always say, if you're going to have a secret base, have it in a decent-sized city. If you have it underground, or in some dark, nasty forest, that's usually the first sort of place your enemies look – if they watched as many Saturday morning cartoons as I did, that is."

Faith blinks. "That's it? Just out for a walk? Not trying to recapture our…" The word slides behind her teeth. She has to spit it out. "Connection?"

"Considering how well my last try went…mmm, no. The whole hands-on-neck thing? Not anxious for a repeat, thanks."

There's no malice in his tone, but Faith's next breath seems to turn to ice and fall heavily into her lungs. She shivers, looks away, looks down at her free hand, sees the fingers curling. After all this time, she remembers the feel of his neck in her hands, his nails digging into her wrists, his body twisting and jerking between her thighs. She can't remember what she was thinking. _Hurt him, hurt Buffy,_ probably. It worries her that she can't remember.

"Sorry," she mutters again, and turns away.

He follows her. She walks briskly, thinking she'll lose him, but he's still behind her when she leaves the main drag. He won't be able to keep up if she runs, she knows, but they're not far from the cemetery now and if anything happens to him—

It would be his own fault, she thinks, and probably serve him right. But she can't let him get himself killed. She's a Slayer; she's supposed to protect those she can. And Buffy would never forgive her.

There's a third reason, one she mulls over uncertainly. Xander is part of her team.

Even after a year the thought of being part of a team is strange to her. She used to think that it was something she wanted. Then, when she realized she'd never get people like Buffy to do things her way, she rejected the idea. Now she doesn't know. She has to answer to people now, justify her decisions sometimes. She feels constrained. Now and then she feels something writhing and burning inside her, held prisoner by her skin and her determination not to go down that path again.

Mostly, though, she kind of likes knowing that Buffy, Robin, Xander, and the others have her back.

Xander's humming.

"What the _fuck_?" mutters Faith. They've reached the cemetery gate. Moonlight shafts through clouds and tree branches, spills wanly onto the headstones, the grey mausoleums, and the broad lane that winds among them.

"There's no Starbucks here," she tells Xander while she examines the padlock on the gate.

"Detour," he says with a shrug.

Faith breaks the padlock with one sharp yank, pushes the gate open. She could have vaulted over, she realizes, and left Xander on the sidewalk. She should've. She doesn't know why she didn't.

Behind her, Xander starts humming again softly.

"Gonna scare the vamps away," she warns.

"What, like they didn't hear you break the gate?"

A flicker of movement by a headstone. Faith is there in two seconds, but it turns out to be a cat. The cat looks at her with yellow eyes and hisses. Faith hisses back and raises her stake threateningly. The cat turns and disappears.

Xander sings, " _He's swell / she's sweller / he's something-something-something—_ "

"All right," says Faith, turning, " _what_ is that?"

"It's my song. Mine and Anya's. Literally ours, by which I mean we made it up spontaneously, thanks to a demon and uh, my own meddling. I've had it in my head all day and I can't remember the words."

"It's annoying."

"At least you don't have it in your head."

"I will if you don't shut up."

"Kinda wish I could remember it," he continues, even though she's turned away and is scanning the graveyard. "It was our song. Kind of. _She's swell / he's sweller / there's something I should tell her_? Damn."

Faith kicks a stone. "You know, I didn't ask you to come along."

"I know," Xander says. "I wasn't invited. Which means that I know what it's like not to be invited."

"Oh, for fuck's sake." She's not doing this. Not with _him._ She could've with Wesley, maybe, but he's as lost to her as Angel.

Xander's words hit her in the back like darts: "You should talk to Buffy."

"Why, so she can tell me that Angel was hers and I fucked things up for them and I have no right to—" She breaks off because she doesn't know what she's trying to do. Miss him. Mourn him. Wish like hell he'd told her before going after the Circle of the Black Thorn.

"You know Buffy would never say that. Come on. He didn't ask for her help, either."

"Buffy," says Faith, "can be pretty damn selfish. Don't act like you don't know what I mean. It's _my_ sacred responsibility. _You_ couldn't possibly understand. What the fuck ever."

"Now who's scaring the vamps away."

"Let them run."

She stands very still, stake at her hip.

Xander says, "You're wrong about Buf. Okay, she can be a little bratty, but hey. Look who I'm standing with in the middle of a graveyard. A very wise man once said, 'Life sucks and then you die.' She's died twice. You might wanna cut her some slack."

"You just gotta defend her."

"She's my friend. She's your friend, too. Once you realize that, you'll realize you're wrong about her. Come on."

"Where?" The question falls lifelessly from her lips. She doesn't feel like arguing. She's not sure _what_ she feels.

"I told you. I had a caramel machiatto in mind before I bumped into you. If you're going to go all emo, Starbucks is probably a better place for it than a cemetery. They have cookies."

"Cookies?" she snorts, but for some reason it doesn't come out as derisively as she intended.

"Cookies," Xander says. "I have spent a lot of time with girls, and one thing I've learned is that cookies help put things in perspective. I'll even be quiet on the way. So if something's lurking, it won't hear us and you can kill it. Also, I won't sing anymore. That's a promise."

Faith scratches the stake with her thumbnail.

"This is an invitation," says Xander. "You wanted one, here it is. Take it or leave it. I'm going to turn around and start walking now. You can follow. Or not. I'm not going to look back to see if you're coming. Just, if we happen to bump into each other later, I'll treat you."

He's being much too nice. This is how he'd be with Buffy or Willow. No, Faith thinks. With them, he'd probably get right to the hugging and the sharing – things that don't interest her.

But a cup of coffee in a warm, lighted café…

It's tempting, even if Xander's the one making the offer. Even if the music will probably be the ooh, look at me, I'm all arty and intelligent! crap that B's into.

"Look, I'm sorry about Anya," she says. It's as close as she can get to _thank you._

"So you said a few months ago."

"Yeah, well. I'm still sorry."

"We all have regrets."

"Yeah, we do." She scans the cemetery again. Still nothing. But she's not ready to leave. She listens to Xander's footsteps, hears the gate's hinges whine as he lets himself out. If he keeps his promise, she thinks, if he doesn't start singing or humming or whistling that stupid song again, then maybe—

Movement. Right there, behind that elm. Definitely not a cat.

All _right._

The vampire barely has time to say, "Oh, _pants_ ," before he's dust, to be taken by the wind.

Faith stands still, aware of every muscle and bone in her body, and the things each is capable of doing. She's aware of her demons, too. She sees their eyes, knows that they can see hers.

She ought to follow Xander, make sure he gets away safely. It was decent of him to come, and bad things happen to the people who try to protect her.

She feels herself being drawn away from the edge of something vast and dark. Telling herself not to look down into it, not to look back, she tosses her hair, feels the dust begin to fall away.

03/24/07

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Orpheus in the Underground (Dark Minuet)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/193456) by [liz_marcs](https://archiveofourown.org/users/liz_marcs/pseuds/liz_marcs)




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